Watching the situation on the pitch unfold exactly as he had planned, Mourinho, sitting on the away team’s bench, couldn’t help but curl the corners of his mouth into a faint smile.
In fact, by fielding the more attacking-minded Lampard in midfield instead of the better-defending Mikel or Ramires, Mourinho had his own calculations.
Although they were at Leicester City’s home ground.
Considering the disparity in strength between the two sides, Mourinho planned to turn the tables and launch a fierce offensive at the King Power Stadium first, aiming to get a goal as quickly as possible.
And after taking the lead, executing his most proficient defensive counter-attack tactics would make them invincible.
Under this tactic, Lampard would make frequent forward runs, even pushing up behind Torres to act as a second striker, fully utilizing his strength in making late runs into the box to shoot.
While Matic, sitting deep, would shoulder the majority of the defensive duties.
Among which, marking Ling Feng out of the game was the direct order Mourinho had given him!
In Mourinho’s view, as long as they restricted Ling Feng, the main ball distributor, Leicester City’s central attacks would be paralyzed, forcing them to rely on wing breakthroughs to open up space.
And the defensive capabilities of Chelsea’s two full-backs, Ashley Cole and Ivanovic, were among the best in the Premier League.
Leicester City wouldn’t find it easy to break through from the flanks!
And this proactive change in tactics indeed caught Leicester City completely off guard.
From watching Chelsea’s match videos, Leicester City manager Pearson had found that Mourinho’s team mostly focused on defense in the opening stages of matches and wouldn’t rashly launch a massive offensive.
Therefore, all pre-match tactical arrangements were made based on this foundation.
He never imagined that in this match, Chelsea would actually come out attacking from the very start!
“This Portuguese guy is very cunning!”
“This won’t do, we must quickly drop deep to defend and withstand this wave of fierce attacks first!”
However, before Pearson could get to the sideline to instruct his players on the pitch, the situation changed!
With Hazard continuously dribbling down the left flank, Leicester City’s right-back De Laet and the other central midfielder Andy King were spun around, looking very ragged.
With no other choice, the centre-back had to step over to help defend.
However, just as Hazard used a feint to cut inside into the penalty area, the 20-year-old young centre-back Liam Moore was too rash.
He reached out his leg trying to win the ball but ended up kicking Hazard squarely on the calf.
Chelsea’s number 17 immediately let out a cry of pain and fell to the ground.
In the next second, referee Paul Tierney, who witnessed the whole thing from close by, blew his whistle decisively and pointed to the penalty spot!
“Penalty!”
“Hazard is brought down in the box, the referee has awarded a penalty!!”
When he first arrived in England last season, Hazard was the player who won the most penalties through dribbling in the entire Premier League!
And this time, he showcased this ability on the stage of the FA Cup…
Seeing the referee’s decision, the tens of thousands of home fans in the King Power Stadium uniformly erupted in synchronized boos.
They didn’t care that Hazard was covering his leg in pain, rolling on the turf, and groaning.
These fans directly started insulting Hazard:
“Oh, no!”
“What is that kid doing?!
Why did he stick his leg out?!”
“Fuck!
That’s a dive!”
Although this foul was very obvious.
And the big screen replay clearly showed that Moore actively stuck his leg out and kicked Hazard down.
However, as the team captain, Morgan still went up to argue with the referee.
And the young centre-back Moore, who had finally gotten a rare start, was also desperately explaining, claiming Hazard ran into him and it wasn’t his fault.
However, referee Paul Tierney remained unmoved, resolutely awarded the penalty, and showed Moore a yellow card.
After gesturing for the Leicester City players to back away, he signaled for a Chelsea player to take the penalty.
Chelsea’s primary penalty taker was Lampard.
This most prolific goalscoring midfielder in England did not waste the opportunity, scoring in one go!
With a powerful strike, the ball drilled into the bottom left corner of the goal at extreme speed.
Kasper Schmeichel could only watch in despair.
Less than eight minutes into the game, Chelsea had taken the lead through Lampard’s penalty!
“One to zero!”
“The visiting Chelsea has secured a dream start!”
Just as the Chelsea players were celebrating at the corner flag, Captain Morgan and Vardy were both raising their arms, encouraging their teammates who were demoralized by conceding:
“It’s okay, the game just started!”
“That’s right, we still have time!”
“Focus up!”
With his teammates’ shouts and the away fans’ songs echoing in his ears, Ling Feng’s brain started working furiously.
…
Since transmigrating, even with a cheat like the system, Ling Feng hadn’t completely pinned all his hopes of becoming stronger on the system.
In his view, the system was just a catalyst that allowed him to get stronger faster.
To truly become a formidable professional player, he had to put in enough hard work and sweat himself!
And playing football requires using your brain, not just your feet.
Therefore, whether in training or during matches, Ling Feng was thinking every single second.
How should he execute this move to better transition into the next, how should this pass be played to directly create a threat, how should he position himself during this attack to better support his teammates…
It was this active thinking that gave Ling Feng a clear understanding of his own strengths and weaknesses.
His strengths lay in his high passing accuracy, diverse passing range, elite off-the-ball movement, and strong running capability.
His weaknesses were his terrible physical confrontation, average defensive ability, average footwork, and average finishing.
Based on the various types of midfielders in modern football, Ling Feng classified himself as an advanced playmaker, equivalent to a number 10 role.
Minimizing individual dribbling, tasked with linking up the attack in the final third, creating chances through passing to threaten the opponent’s goal.
And he knew very well that his physical confrontation ability at this current stage was practically non-existent.
Forget about the towering Matic; he couldn’t even hold off Oscar, the player with the worst physical attributes in the Chelsea squad.
So, trapped by Matic’s tight man-marking, how should he break this deadlock?
Fortunately, this wasn’t Ling Feng’s first time being heavily marked.
In the last match against Leeds United, he also faced man-marking from the opponent’s defensive midfielder, but he still delivered a perfect performance of one assist and one goal to help the team win.
This time, he could use the exact same countermeasure.
And the method to break the deadlock was dropping deep and switching positions!
As long as he dropped deep into his own half to receive the ball and organize play, the lone defensive midfielder Matic wouldn’t dare to follow him out.
Because once he followed him out, massive spaces would open up in Chelsea’s midfield.
If Matic didn’t follow him out, then he could switch positions with Mahrez on the right wing, thereby playing threatening passes facing the goal from the right flank.
However, this method required coordination from his teammates.
Thinking of this, Ling Feng waved to Mahrez not far away and called out: “Riyad!
Come here for a second!”
(END CHAPTER)